


it’s just a matter of time

by epilogues



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 12:08:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14378340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epilogues/pseuds/epilogues
Summary: until we’re all found out





	it’s just a matter of time

**Author's Note:**

> written for an anonymous prompt on tumblr: “i can’t take this silence anymore” + joetrick
> 
> this is barely coherent and depressing as fuck but i hope you like it?

“Patrick, I can’t fucking - I can’t take this fucking silence anymore,” Joe says.

Patrick keeps his eyes fixed on the road and his face blank, but Joe can see his fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “What do you want me to say?”

“ _Something_ , okay? You’ve barely talked to me since Pete disappeared on this fucking work trip, and now you’ve got me in the car going god knows where and you won’t fucking talk to me.”

“Joe, I-“ A desperate edge slips into Patrick’s voice and he takes a minute to swallow his words. “I’ll explain soon, okay?”

“Why can’t you explain now? I know that you hate when Pete’s gone, and besides, he said that he’s getting back tonight. Either way, though, that’s not an excuse to just shut me out. There’s something that you’re not telling me.”

Patrick looks down at his lap for a second, shaking his head a little, before returning his eyes to the road. “I’ll explain soon,” he repeats.

“Fine,” Joe huffs. “Can you at least tell me where the fuck we’re going?”

“The cabin.”

“The cabin? Patrick, look, as much as I’d love to work this shit out with a surprise romantic excursion, I somehow don’t think this that’s what this is.”

“No, it’s not, it’s just-“ Patrick stops again. “I fucked up. I fucked up, and, and I’m trying to fix it as much as I can, okay?”

Joe sighs again, frustrated, but before he turns his body towards the window and away from Patrick, he asks, “Is. . . is everything okay?”

Patrick doesn’t answer. He just puts his blinker on and turns left onto the road leading to the small cabin that he, Joe, and Pete own.

They reach the cabin about twenty deadly silent minutes later, and Patrick parks outside. “You should, uh, just go inside,” he says. “I can’t, I can’t fucking do this.”

The reality of the situation is crashing into Patrick again, almost as bad as it had two days ago, and he has to lean his forehead against the steering wheel and close his eyes for a second so he doesn’t start crying. This is real, what’s inside the cabin is real, Joe’s about to fucking find out, all of this feels so much more fucking real than it has before. Patrick’s been shoving down everything he can since two days ago, but now it’s real and it fucking _hurts_.

“Patrick?” Joe asks. “Hey, babe, are you okay?”

He puts his hand on Patrick’s shoulder, and Patrick pretty much breaks down. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “Just. Fuck, just go inside, okay? It’ll, it’ll make sense.”

Joe still looks worried as fuck, but he slowly unbuckles his seatbelt and opens his car door. “Are you coming in?”

“I can’t,” Patrick says, shaking his head. “Just go, alright?”

Joe looks like he’s going to try and argue, but he just presses a kiss to Patrick’s cheek and gets out of the car. Patrick watches his boyfriend go and tries to calm himself down, mentally kicking himself for freaking out. He’s been holding himself together since Sunday, and he knows he’s going to have to hold it together even more when Joe comes out of the cabin.

“Fuck,” Patrick whispers. He wonders how long it’ll take Joe to go to the upstairs bedroom. How long it’ll take him to realize. If everything will look the same as when Patrick left, or if the maggots will have already burrowed inside and -

Patrick throws his door open and pukes onto the gravel driveway, trying to clear the mental image of... him lying there, curled up on the bedroom floor, almost appearing asleep except for the tiny worms crawling from his eyes and mouth. Once he’s puked up all of what little he’s been able to eat recently, Patrick sits back and shuts his car door again. This is all his fucking fault. It’s all his fault and Joe’s going to find out any second now and Joe’s going to blame him.

Patrick rests his head on the steering wheel once more and lets himself cry.

Just under two hours later, Joe opens the car door and gets in. Patrick jumps at the sound, and when he turns to Joe, his boyfriend won’t even look at him.

“I sent an anonymous tip to the police about the body,” Patrick forces out as he slowly turns the keys in the ignition and pulls out of the driveway. “As far as they’ll know, neither of us know until they tell us.”

Joe doesn’t acknowledge this. “So you knew.”

“Yeah, I… I knew. Since Sunday.”

There’s a long pause. “It’s Tuesday. It’s fucking _Tuesday_ , Patrick, and you’re telling me you’ve known since Sunday but I just found out?”

Patrick winces at Joe’s raised voice, but he knows it’s what he deserves. “Yeah. I’m sorry, I know it’s fucked-up, but I just - I couldn’t.”

“You sent those texts from ‘Pete,” didn’t you, then. The ones about the work trip.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says again, and he can feel tears pricking at the back of his eyes. “On. On Saturday night, after you went to sleep, Pete asked me to drive him down to the cabin for the night and to not tell you. He said that he was just feeling overwhelmed and that he needed a break, and he told me not to tell you because he said that you, you couldn’t understand. That you would’ve tried to go with him or something.” Patrick inhales shakily, and he can feel himself starting to cry again. “So I drove him. He wasn’t acting super off or anything, and you know he’s done stuff like this before, and then I dropped him off, and. And I just, I just left. I fucking _left_ , Joe. I would give fucking anything to not have driven away.”

Joe is silent for a long time after that. “So you went back to pick him up, and-”

  
“And,” Patrick says.

“Why didn’t you just _tell_ me, Patrick? This- this isn’t a secret that you can just keep.”

Patrick closes his eyes for a second. “I couldn’t, okay? I couldn’t. It was, it was my fault and I didn’t know what to do, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, fuck.”

Joe exhales, and Patrick can’t even risk glancing in his direction because he’s terrified of what he’d see. “Why don’t you just pull over for a minute?” Joe says after a moment. His tone is gentle but measured.

Patrick nods, carefully steering the car to the side of the road and parking it. He wipes his eyes aggressively and chokes out another, “I’m sorry,” to Joe.

“Shh,” Joe murmurs. He reaches across the center console and wraps his arms around Patrick. “I’m mad, okay, I’m probably going to be mad for a while, but I can’t… neither of us can deal with that right now. Okay? Let’s just take one thing at a time, and it’s- it’s going to be okay.  
  
Patrick just holds Joe tighter, sobbing even harder than before. It’s the first time that he’s let himself actually attempt to process what’s happened, and it fucking _hurts_. “Joe, he’s fucking-”

“I know,” Joe says, and _fuck_ , he’s crying too; Patrick can hear his voice shaking.

“He’s fucking… he’s fucking _gone_ ,” Patrick says again, and.

And yeah. He is. Pete’s gone, he’s dead, and he’s never fucking coming back. Nothing is okay, nothing’s ever _going_ to be okay because Pete’s gone and everything’s falling apart and Patrick fucked up and nothing is okay. Nothing is okay, but Joe and Patrick hold on.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! feedback makes my day :)


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